Expected Revisions to Colorado Nonfarm Payroll Jobs

Second quarter 2019 Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) results indicate Colorado total nonfarm payroll jobs estimates will be revised up for this period with the release of benchmarked estimates in March 2020. June 2019 estimates are expected to be revised up by about 300 nonfarm payroll jobs. April and May 2019 estimates are expected to be revised up by about 5,100 and 10,500 nonfarm payroll jobs, respectively.

Applying these results through October 2019 brings estimated total nonfarm payroll jobs in October to 2,791,800. This change brings over the year payroll job growth estimates through October 2019 to 54,400 or 2.0 percent.

The final March 2020 benchmarked series are expected to vary from these estimates due to new seasonal adjustment factors and new estimates of nonfarm payroll jobs not covered by the unemployment insurance program.

Industry sectors expected to undergo an upward revision to payroll jobs estimates in the 2nd quarter1 include trade, transportation, and utilities (~5,400), construction (~5,100), financial services (~3,700), and information (~1,100). Payroll jobs estimates for manufacturing and government may also be revised upward.

The industry sectors expected to undergo a downward revision to payroll jobs estimates are professional and business services (~9,600), leisure and hospitality (~4,200), and other services (~1,400). Payroll jobs estimates for education and health services and mining and logging may also be revised down.

Payroll jobs estimates for the Denver (~10,500), Fort Collins (~2,500), and Greeley (~1,600) Metropolitan Statistical Areas are expected to be revised up in the 2nd quarter1. Estimates for the Pueblo and Colorado Springs Metropolitan Statistical Areas may also be revised upward.

Expected Revisions to Colorado Nonfarm Payroll Jobs based on 3rd quarter 2019 QCEW data will be released Thursday, February 20, 2020.

Every month of the year other than February the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment, in cooperation with the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, releases estimates of Colorado nonfarm payroll jobs for the previous month based on results from a survey of business establishments. Estimates for Colorado are produced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics for total nonfarm payroll jobs and specific industry sectors or groups of sectors across the entire state, and for the seven metropolitan statistical areas.

In February of each year these survey based estimates are compared to and adjusted in a process called “benchmarking” based on administrative records available since the release of the survey estimates. The results of that comparison are released in March.

For instance, at the beginning of the 2020 calendar year Colorado nonfarm payroll jobs estimates for the 4th quarter of 2018 and all of 2019 will be benchmarked based on information available from the QCEW program for the 4th quarter of 2018 and the first three quarters of 2019. These updated estimates will be released in March 2020.

The source of these administrative records for the QCEW program are unemployment insurance reports Colorado employers are required to file quarterly with the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment. Among other information, employers include the number of people employed at the firm for each month of the quarter for which the report is being filed. Although only firms with employees covered by the Colorado Unemployment Insurance program are required by state and federal law to submit these reports, this quarterly census of employment covers about 98 percent of all nonfarm payroll jobs and about 88 percent of total employment in Colorado.

Aggregated by industry, the QCEW data are more closely aligned with the definition of nonfarm payroll jobs than with total employment. This is because an individual holding more than one job is counted only once in the total employment estimate but multiple times in both QCEW and the nonfarm payroll jobs estimates. Total employment estimates are by place of residence while both QCEW and payroll jobs are by place of business.

Though the official nonfarm payroll jobs estimates are benchmarked only once a year, data from QCEW are available quarterly and, once available, can be compared to the official series to see by about how much the official statistics will be adjusted.